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Half a year in

Happy New year good people. I hope your holiday season was fantastic. To those that the holiday seasons were or are usually difficult, I send lots of hugs your way. It’s that time when we are back to the grind or preparing to get back, Schools have re-opened basically, it’s Njanuary and things are business as usual.

In my house, we are still celebrating this week though, no not the holidays, despite how much I want to, but the fact that my baby just turned 6 months. We have a very curious, busy-body, ‘talkative’ and playful 6-month old. We are so ecstatic about this milestone that if funds weren’t scarce we may have thrown a bash for ourselves for maneuvering this parenting thing to this point. I could bore you with my new year resolutions, I am embellishing them by calling them boring, I will, however, entertain you by giving you some of the moments I look back on and laugh at myself over the last 6 months.

First up is my very first diaper change. The nurse tells me “before you breastfeed the baby, you need to check his diaper because he won’t let you when he’s full”. So I go into my bag get a clean diaper and ask her “How do I do it?” The look on her face!!! She was judging me and didn’t even try to pretend otherwise. She went further to ask how I didn’t know how to change a diaper. I just humbled myself in the moment and told her I am not a baby person so I have never bothered to learn these things, I am however my baby’s person and I have to learn so just show me.

I take my baby home and things start out well till he’s about 10 days old and he starts crying. Boy did he cry! I don’t know if he was trying out for some baby crying Olympics, but if he was, he’d be a sure winner. I tried everything that I could think of, changed the diaper, tried to feed him, walked him and nothing! The child wouldn’t budge. So do you want to know what my genius mind decided to do without consulting me, cry? I held the baby and I cried with him. I think the baby was either worn out or shamed by his mother crying and was now calming down. Babies don’t care about your gangsta personality.

Next up, first blow-out diaper. Guys, I wasn’t ready. With my scanty knowledge of babies, I figured they are tiny little creatures and all the munchkin is consuming is milk so how bad could the by-product be. I wasn’t ready. I pick the baby up and he’s a bit sticky, turn him over and his white romper has a distinct yellow mark. So I am over myself wondering if I did a poor job with the diaper. When I open it! Oh MY! I close the diaper first and tried to figure out how I am getting all his clothes out without smearing him. Took clothes off, reopened the diaper, re-assessed the situation. This was a job bigger than cotton wool. I just put water in his basin and placed the baby in, gave him a good rinse.

Remember the time, I mentioned I had to take my baby to the hospital? Well, what I failed to mention is that I quickly changed to go to the hospital, went all the way and back to my house, only to realize when I was back at home that I had worn my top in inside-out. I spent an entire afternoon looking like I don’t know how to properly dress.

Let us not forget the time that my child slept for 9 hours continuously. Up to this point, the most he had done was just over 5 hours. So child slept at 6:30PM. By 10:30PM, I went to bed ready to wake up in under one and a half hours for feeding. At around midnight I stir, he’s still asleep. So I ‘close’ my eyes knowing he’ll wake up anytime soon. 1AM still asleep, I even go to him to confirm if his breathing is fine, 2 AM, still asleep, 3 AM! Come on! My engorged boobs and I headed out to pump, he woke up at 3:52AM. I lost out on good sleep through self-sabotage. To think of how the value of sleep has gone high post-baby, can’t be losing good sleep like this.

Last and definitely not least, has to be our first shots. In our thinking, the baby was to get one shot. I had psychologically prepared myself for one shot. I get to the clinic and the nurse says, “tengeneza miguu, tunadunga miguu” *prepare the legs, we shall inject the legs* I innocently ask, which leg and she informs me matter-of-factly, both of them, it’s two shots. I look at my tiny human and I almost just say we are canceling this whole thing and going home. Two shots! First one goes in and the boy screams bloody murder, I am yet to recover and she’s requesting I turn him for the other shot. I think I hurt that day more than he did. Once she was done and I was redressing the baby I had to ask her if there’s a way I can get the shots and the immunity passed on through breastfeeding. That we had two more rounds gives you a clue as to what her answer was.

I could go on and on but I’ll stop there. I look forward to collecting more laughable moments with my little one.